Hope In The Ruins
by TerraZeal
Summary: Deathwing has his victory and goes to claim his final victory in Dragonblight, atop the ancient, sacred Wyrmrest Temple. There, he encounters another creature, one who won't let him claim victory so easily. Deathwing victory AU. Some descriptive violence.


_**Author's Note: **Another dragon story. Deathwing-victory, but takes place mostly in End Time. My take on how Deathwing ended up impaled on top of Wyrmrest Temple. Yes, the Old Gods DID do it, in a way, but I think that it was on purpose. DEATHWING'S purpose. A suicide mission, having something to do with Murozond. Neltharion and Deathwing are multiple personalities here. I never believed that the gentle, kind-hearted Neltharion could ever become Deathwing without at least having split personalities, Old Gods or not. This COULD be interpreted as an alternate version of my fic, Deathwing's Thrall, but you don't need to read that one, just accept that this is basically a semi-Deathwing victory AU. Deathwing lamenting the loss of Thrall is a reference to Deathwing's Thrall. Also has vague ties to my End Time fic. _

_**Hope In The Ruins**_

The cool waves of the Maelstrom soothed his burnt and battered exposed skin. The damned mortals had ripped the heavy, metal plates right off, and that damnable shaman had used his own weapon against him! The Demon, no, Dragon, soul had came back to bite him in the ass. Deathwing had thought he'd enchanted it so that it could do no harm to its master. What had gone wrong here? Either way, it didn't matter now. He had won. It was over. He had killed them. All of them.

The Death Aspect sighed and scrabbled against the ledge of the Maelstrom. It wouldn't do for him to fall back into Therazane's realm. He was just weak enough that the powerful Earth elemental lady would be able to destroy him, or at least use her powers and turn the earth against him, trapping him forever in the depths of Deepholm, frozen and unmoving. With an effort, he managed to pull himself up over the ledge and gasped, collapsing in a heap on the shattered bodies of humans, elves, orcs...and who knows what else.

Something like a jolt of electricity went through him as he spied an object, a certain oh-so-special object. The Dragonsoul. Greed, hot and burning, surged through him. He crept over to the shining object slowly, so as not to chance its wrath. No, it was not even shining, but he could still feel its power calling to him. Could he use it, as it was now? He nudged it gently with a claw, and glanced around for the wielder of the weapon, that vile orc shaman, Thrall.

No where to be found. Thrall had vanished, or been sucked into the Maelstrom. In any case, it seemed that the orc posed no threat to him now. Deathwing used a claw to flick the corpse of a brown female orc, that other shaman, Thrall's beloved 'wife' or whatever term orcs used. Thrall would never deliberately abandon her. He would have killed himself or died with her. Something, somewhere, had saved the shaman. It was no matter, really. Thrall had no weapons against the Death Aspect. The Dragonsoul was once again in the hands of Deathwing. Or rather, claws.

He attempted to yell for one of his servants, one of the Twilight's Hammer, but he was too weak. He didn't dare touch the Soul himself, lest it still be staunchly against him. His greatest mortal servant, that corrupt priest, Archbishop Benedictus, was dead, killed by that damn shaman. Oh, how Deathwing wished he had found the shaman! The pretend Earth-Warder! Oh, the horrors he would inflict on that stupid green monkey!

Scratching a bit at the wall he had built up between his own mind and that of Neltharion, he wondered where the other part of his personality had gone. Had it at last vanished? Killed at last by Deathwing's final victory? Hah! There was no trace of Neltharion in his mind. He shattered the wall with a thought. Still nothing. He was right. Neltharion was gone for good. Deathwing was at last in full control of his body.

_Really? Are you? _It was a hissing, whispering voice, one that Deathwing knew. Not that Great Old God, N'zoth, or even Yogg'Saron. This one was male, yes, but different and yet familiar. A voice he felt he should know. The dark Aspect shook his head, trying to make the voices go away. Eventually, the hissing voice telling him that he was never in control, that he really would never win, vanished with a laugh, a taunting, mocking laugh, daring him to take his rightful place as ruler of Azeroth, daring him to go...there. The sacred home of dragonkind, Dragonblight.

Why would the voices want that? Yogg'Saron was dead. Or at least incapacitated enough that Deathwing was no longer able to speak to him. Either way, Deathwing realized he had been planning to go there anyway. It was his home. Always, the home of any dragon. Wyrmrest had expelled him on his last visit, because he had failed the Charge of the Aspects, the Charge to protect Azeroth at all costs. Now, now he was ruler.

The Aspects were dead. All of them. Alexstrasza died in a last ditch effort to protect her beloved mortals. She had thrown herself in front of them, challenged the Destroyer directly, when it became clear that he was winning, that the only hope for life on Azeroth was for the mortals to escape, to find a new plan, to adapt the way mortals had been for thousands of years. If the mortal heroes of Azeroth failed to escape, then hope, all hope, was lost.

She had died defiant to the end. Deathwing remembered the ecstasy he'd felt when his barbed tail had pierced her frail, non-plated body, pierced the sweet, pulsating Heart of Life within her chest. She had screamed, but not for herself. Never, the selfless Alexstrasza. She would scream for those she couldn't save. The lives she had caused to be lost here this day.

Ysera had tried to use the powers of the Emerald Dream against him. Tried to turn the world into an Emerald Nightmare. The very thing she had fought against, she had tried to use against him. Ysera could never control Nightmares. The Nightmares were the creations of his benefactor, N'zoth, not the Dream Queen. The Nightmares still engulfed the Death Aspect. He saw his world, his victory, what would become of it. He saw himself, impaled on the needle spire of Wyrmrest Temple by the Old Gods, finished at last with their greatest pawn.

Deathwing had laughed. He was no pawn. He was ONE OF THEM! At least, as close to being one of them as he could get. They would never turn on their own. Always, he would be useful. He was an Aspect, first and foremost, and the Old Gods could use an Aspect, the power over Earth, Death, whatever he commanded. He had knocked aside Ysera's pathetic attempt at a Nightmare and killed her, but not before she had tried once more to stop him. Her whisper was like an irksome fly, buzzing constantly in the wind.

_You may live, you may win here against us, but you will never truly win. I see the future, and the future I saw for you will come to pass. You are an Aspect, whether you believe it or not. Neltharion, do not forget that, in the end, you are the Earth Warder, my brother. _And then she had died. The green light faded from her brilliant green eyes, and the Dreamer went to sleep forever, into dreams or nightmares, the Destroyer knew not.

Kalecgos was trickier to pin down. He was, first and foremost, the most powerful mage on Azeroth. He could use magic even greater than the Destroyer's. It was Blue Dragon magic that had fueled the creation of Deathwing's newest children, the Twilight Dragonflight. He blinked here and there, in and out of reality, raging at Deathwing for killing his precious Alexstrasza, his precious mortals, specifically, his precious little human mage, that Jaina woman. Despite having feelings for the Dragon Queen, he also had developed quite odd feelings for that stupid human mage.

In the end, his magic had begun to tire. Kalecgos was not fueled by the power of the old gods, just the power of magic, and magic had an end. No mage, mortal or immortal, could fight forever without rest. Kalec had tired, and Deathwing had taken advantage of it. As Kalec had paused to draw magic from the Blue Shrine and his fellow blue dragons, Deathwing had ambushed him. Had seen through the ruse, through the mirror images the great blue Aspect had created to attempt to confuse him.

The whispering, hissing voice, the not-voice of the Old Gods, had told him which Kalecgos was the real one, and he had killed him, as easily as gutting a fish. The look of shock and surprise on the blue dragon's face was priceless.

Nozdormu...that was a totally different story. Deathwing still wasn't sure the Aspect of Time was dead. Deathwing had whipped his barbed, armored tail at the barely-conscious, barely-fighting Time Lord and Nozdormu had vanished, tumbling into what looked like a time portal. If he were not dead, then he was lost, lost forever, without that vile shaman to rescue him from the timestream.

Deathwing stopped thinking about the murders of his family and returned his attention to the Dragonsoul. Pondering it. What would happen if he were to pick it up? Would it reject him? Rejoice at being reunited with the one who had created it? He had won, and he didn't want to chance even more injuries before he was healed. Still, he had to get the disc out of the Maelstrom. Strength was slowly but surely returning. He still burned and ached from the lost plates, from the feeling of his exposed spine, the surreal pain he'd never thought to experience.

The Destroyer would die here, in the Maelstrom, if someone, somehow, did not come to try and repair the damage to his body. He had no choice. He had to touch the Dragonsoul. Had to try and use its powers for himself. Carefully, Deathwing reached out a clawed arm, gently scraping the edge of the disc. Nothing. No pain. A sigh of relief escaped the dragon. He smashed the Dragonsoul with a large talon. Power erupted from it in a beam of brilliant, white light.

Ecstasy! Healing! The essence of his brothers and sisters, and even that of the foul orc shaman who had at last imbued the disc with his own essence, healed him. At least, healed him enough that he was able to stand, to fly. A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Was it the shaman? No, something blue. That draenei priest. The Destroyer glanced sideways at Velen. How was it still alive?

"Go to your doom, Aspect of Death. Or, at least, to the doom of Azeroth. Do not listen to the voices. Listen to yourself. Above all, you are an Aspect. Remember, Neltharion, Deathwing, and do not give in." The draenei priest vanished in a flash of brilliant white light. The dragon had noticed a large, bloody hole in the prophet's chest. He had died, but refused to die until he had delivered that message. It was so similar to Ysera's own prediction of the future, and yet a bleak one.

Not one where Deathwing ruled, but one where he met his doom. And one where he was constantly told to remember who and what he was. What the hell? Deathwing pondered this for a bit before launching himself into flight, away, away from the Maelstrom. If the orc shaman lived, surely he had fallen into Therazane's realm. She would not let him go a second time. She...what...loved him? Desired him? The dragon had no idea how the mind of an elemental lord worked.

A few hours of painful flight, and he was drawn at last to his throne, the very spires of Wyrmrest Temple. He and the Twilight's Hammer would rule from the top of Wyrmrest. The Old Gods claimed they sought the destruction of the world. Deathwing and the Hammer did as well, but that wasn't true. They sought a future, a world in which they shared in the glory, the power of Deathwing the Destroyer and his victory. A future where THEY would rule and all would bow before them. At last, that future had come to pass.

As Deathwing approached Wyrmrest, something caught his attention. _Life. _Besides the various terrified mortal races here in Dragonblight, there was true life. Dragon life. _Aspect life. _He couldn't believe it. One of his siblings had survived. _But I saw their bodies! I saw them die, or get lost forever in time! _Time. That was where it was coming from. Nozdormu had fled to the Bronze Dragonshrine when defeat was imminent rather than die. Cowardly snake. Deathwing laughed. He would kill his final brother, and then take his place atop Wyrmrest. He angled north, toward the Bronze Shrine and the flicker of Time that meant his brother was there.

At first, he passed over the shrine because he didn't recognize it at all. Perhaps Nozdormu's fear led to him losing control of the hourglass here, the sands of time. Hmm. Deathwing circled the shrine, unable to get a good look at what was beneath the odd silver-black sand obscuring the view of the shrine itself. Sand bit parts of his exposed flesh like slivers of glass. He ignored the sharp, biting pains. He had felt worse. When he landed at last, the very same sand on the ground was just as sharp and sent pain shooting through his feet, scaled or not. The sand had the texture of sharp bullets, stinging arcane blasts, a thousand tiny blowdarts.

The Destroyer still managed to ignore it. What WAS this? What the hell was going on here? Where was Nozdormu? As if in answer to his question, a large dragon, as large as Deathwing himself, appeared out of the swirling, biting sands. It was black, blacker even than Deathwing and his flight, but with silvery streaks cut into it's sides, and blue-hued wings, once again as large and magnificent as Deathwing's. His first thought was _Twilight Dragon_ but that wasn't the case. A Twilight Dragon was ethereal, ephemeral...this dragon was very solid.

"Desstroyer...what are you doing here? Leave now. Thiss iss my realm. Mine, at last. You took care of the othersss for me. Now leave me in peace." Deathwing recognized the voice. It was the hissing, raspy voice in his head during the final battle.

The Destroyer was not easily intimidated. "All belongs to Deathwing, the Destroyer! Begone, whatever you are! You are not of this realm. This is the realm of the Bronze Dragonflight. You are not a Bronze dragon! I come to claim this shrine for myself, just as I will soon destroy the other shrines."

Raspy laughter. "Oh, but dear Neltharion, I AM, or rather, WAS a Bronze Dragon. More like, THE Bronze dragon. Do you not recognize me, brother dear?" The large, silvery-black dragon gazed at Deathwing with it's shining silver eyes.

Deathwing was puzzled. He had no sibling that looked like this. Was this thing saying it was Nozdormu? Or HAD been? What had happened to his brother, to make him look like he did now? No dragon, Twilight, Chromatic, Black, was meant to look as this creature did. Crackling with unearthly energy, shattered hide revealing silvery insides that sparked with blue lightning...this creature was sickening, even to the vile Deathwing.

"Regardless of whether you are or are not my brother, I will still kill you, as I did my other siblings. Face death with dignity, twisted brother." Deathwing lunged, attempting to snap his jaws around the time-twisted dragon's neck. Twisted Nozdormu merely stood his ground and faded out of time when Deathwing came near. So this was the power of time. True immortality.

"You think you can kill me, stupid Desstroyer? I am the master of Time! I am the Lord of the Infinite! I am Murozond, Aspect of Infinity, and now thisss world is MINE! I will tear apart thisss world and create a new one. One where MY flight rulesss, free of the constraintss of time. We will dance in and out of time asss if we were merely swimming in a river! You failed, Neltharion. Failed as always. I could never count on my siblings to do the job they were meant to. YOU were meant to exterminate them all. The mortalssss. You failed. It doesn't matter. You can't touch me. I will make you sit here and watch, watch as even the great Temple of Wyrmrest crumples beneath my power!"

Deathwing took a few minutes to wrap his head around the fact that Nozdormu had mutated so badly that he had taken another name, much like Neltharion when the Deathwing personality became too strong. However, he didn't seem to be corrupt, not like Deathwing had been. There was nothing making him do this, nothing but himself. He wanted to destroy it all and start over. He was like a deranged Titan, claiming his new Azeroth would be perfect. Pain, sharp pain. Blood trailed out of Deathwing's nose as the pain finally subsided.

Deathwing heard himself speak, but it was not him doing the talking. Regardless, it didn't matter. He was wrong. Neltharion was not gone. At long last, Neltharion had found the strength to push aside Deathwing and become the dominant personality.

Neltharion spoke. "No. You will not defile our world, creature. I am responsible, in part, for what happened, for the desolate future that Ysera and Velen spoke of, but I will not allow you to defile our sacred Temple. If you rule this desolate world, you will rule from here. Wyrmrest will not be defiled."

Neltharion took off in flight, barely escaping the grasping hands of Time that Nozdormu...Murozond...had set upon him. Young Infinite Drakes followed him, chased him. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting to the Temple. If he made it, it would be over. Over at long last. The dragons' would no longer have the great power they did now. If the Temple were damaged badly enough, so to would their power be damaged.

The needle-like spire rose high in the distance. Neltharion felt a pang of loss. How he missed the peace and sanctity of Wyrmrest. So long had he been Deathwing. So long had he been denied the great Temple. But now, now, he would be there for eternity. Ysera and Velen were right. In the end, he was an Aspect. Always an Aspect. Nothing would change that. He remembered something from long ago. The Old Gods could not take over the world unless all the Aspects were dead.

He flew toward the Temple with an even greater purpose. Without the power from the sacred Temple, Murozond would no longer be as powerful an Aspect as he was now. Aspect of Infinity, yes, and as long as he lived, but would the Old Gods let him? He would be weak. The Temple filled his vision, the needle-spire below, beckoning him. Neltharion closed his eyes and thought of Alexstrasza.

_Forgive me, sister. _He felt the sharp, piercing pain as the needle-spire pierce his chest as he charged the Temple, impaling him, forever. He felt his body slide down the needle, the sharp rock cutting at his flesh, his insides, felt it pierce what he no longer thought he had. His heart. The Heart of the Earth. Copper light gushed from his body, each time his heart tried to pump around the needle impaling it. Coppery blood flowed from his wounds, from his heart, streaked down the sides of the Temple.

Rubble from the ruins of the Temple crushed several incoming Infinite drakes, the others were incinerated by the greatest power of the Temple. The power to expel corruption. It had been removed by Alexstrasza recently to allow a black dragon she thought of as an ally to enter, what was her name? Nalice? He didn't know or care. Either way, at long last, the protection was reinstated, the Infinite drakes expelled, incinerated.

Neltharion's suicide, sacrifice, reignited the powers of the Temple. Wyrmrest would be safe from Murozond. Perhaps, in the end, someone would come and put an end to the evil reign of the corrupt Time Lord. Perhaps. For now, Wyrmrest was safe. Safe at last, and Neltharion could finally go to his own rest, as any dragon would want, inside the great Temple. Or at least, the Temple inside of him. He and Deathwing both managed a strangled laugh before life finally left their body and they could finally rest.

Murozond was seething. That...that foul betrayer! How could he!? He saw what Murozond saw! This future! That tree-hugging Neltharion had taken control, that was all it could be. He should have killed them, or sent them reeling about in time when he had the chance! Now the Temple was lost to him and his flight. A few surviving Infinite drakes had told him how they had been incinerated upon approaching the Temple.

Murozond felt life, still, in this wretched place. He glanced at the weapon one of his minions had obtained for him. A corrupt orc had brought this wonderous piece to him. A mana bomb, he had called it. Infused with Infinite power, it would destroy or distort all life on Northrend. All life in the Dragonblight, except the Infinite flight. Why wait? Why not now? Murozond flashed over to the desolate blue dragonshrine and set up the mana bomb. Perhaps it would also destroy Neltharion's dead body lying on top the Temple.

He flicked a talon and set off the mana bomb. Screams and cries echoed throughout Northrend. Screams as the former patriarch of the Bronze dragons, Lord of Time, committed ultimate genocide on all the races in Northrend. Scourge and living alike. None would survive the blast of a mana bomb. His minion had claimed that he had even tested it to be absolutely sure.

A wasteland. That was all Murozond could see. Ruins. All the buildings, all the shrines, were in ruins. Blue dragons that had been circling the shrine fell to the ground, lifeless and crackling with Infinite energy. Their bodies made barely-heard thuds. Murozond laughed. The corrupt orc had been right. The mana bomb HAD done exactly what he'd wanted. Except...Murozond snarled, raged. Still, there, in the middle of Dragonblight, the Temple stood unharmed. Neltharion's glittering black and copper corpse gleamed in the wake of the shimmering mana residue, but was otherwise unharmed.

Elsewhere, a time-twisted shadow of a mage looked at the temple. She had survived the mana bomb. Another one. Almost unharmed. She was warped, twisted, distorted, not herself, but she was alive. Alive as one could be in this wasteland.

Neltharion, Deathwing's, sacrifice...the Temple...it alone stood undamaged in the horrible destructive wake of the Time-Twisted mana bomb.

The time-twisted shadow of Jaina cried. Cried at this last beacon of hope in the ruins.


End file.
